My idea of the perfect garden is:

I said "seemlessly blending" mostly because, out here in the High Desert, a person winds up killing an awful lot of otherwise delightful plants that simply don't want to survive under the arid, windy, blazingly hot in summer, naturally impoverished soil conditions that exist here. Fact is, I love the desert and marvel at the survivors that do manage to grow and flourish here. I kept coming back to see the desert time after time over several decades before finally buying my place to settle down here in the High Desert.

None of my own realities prevent me from appreciating places like the Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, however, where they have precipitation in amazing quantities to help their florals and arbors along. Similarly I can appreciate the Wilbur D. Mays Arboretum in Rancho San Rafael near downtown Reno Nevada even though the notion, of having a riparian area or ponds such as are included there, is purest fantasy here in the genuinely xeric High Desert. Certainly not least, the beauties of the new McConnell Arboretum at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding California are a delightful horticultural exercise. So I'm aware of many different kinds of "perfect gardens" and voted as I did only because what I myself am going to be capable of creating is in fact going to depend substantially on my natural environment.

I guess I would have to say my gardening style is relaxed and casual. I don't even really do much pre-planning other than to consider what I like, take into account the varying heights and textures, and pair up things that I think look good together. I'm still learning and making lots of mistakes, so moving plants around is something I do a lot of.

Ideally, as my garden matures, I want it to have that slightly crowded and somewhat hectic cottage garden look. That suits me and my lifestyle. ;)

I'm going with relaxed and casual but I cannot bring myself to cut my flowers off:LOL: I like how they look in the garden too much!

I really like every choice given in some way or another. I ended up picking what most reflects what I have going on right now...

Other - I need the garden to provide for my family. While looks are important, at this point production is more important. The price of food is not likely to go down any more than the price of fuel. Good luck & bountiful gardens too all.

I voted for exotic tropical retreat, but I would also include some of the other options such as tranquil and serene, relaxed and casual, bold and dramatic foliage and flowers. I would say my backyard pool garden is all of these. My color scheme is bright tropical colors -red, fucshia, purple, with of course white and green. I have Mexican Fan Palms, Japanese Banana, Black Magic Elephant ears, Hardy Hibiscus, Oleander (fuschia)Honeysuckle (white), Gardenia, groundcovers are Cyclamen (red), purple heart, mexican heather, persian shield, snapdragons (red) which I need to take out because they've gotten too tall, dianthus, and a low creeping red flowering bush that was supposed to be annual and turned out to be perrenial (which is great of course) but I forgot it's name. As most gardens it's still a work in progress but - I find it very relaxing to sit on my patio surrounded by beautiful and fragrant plants and watch the birds, butterflies, hummingbirds, etc.. My favorite time is early in the morning while I drink my first cup of coffee. I don't think it gets much better than this.

Anyone agree?
Esther
PS: also some Sago palms which I forgot earlier

This message was edited May 4, 2008 7:57 PM

i agree esther..........that's about as good as it gets.

Mamajack,
So what does your "wild abandon" look like? What plants, colors, etc. - BTW - Those were some freaky land crab holes - I don't think I could garden there - I would probably end up falling in my pool - after jumping out of the way of shadows. lol
Esther

wild abandon........look at my trade list and you will see some of the things i grow. i am a relatively new gardener and i am always getting a new plant. some are mature but most are babies. in order to keep them alive i put them in any flower bed. then when they grow to maturity i see that i have to rearrange things but you know how slow that next bed is to get ready. also, i plant things not really knowing what their habits are. and some of those get out of hand. i need to slow down and catch up but i won't. my garden is just one big happy experiment for me. one day i would really like to have the whole yard dug up and just have paths to get here and there with no grass to mow. and then move all my plants according to height and colors but for now it's just going to have to do. i'm getting older so i'm slowing down on the amt. of yard i can dig and convert into flower beds in a season.

WOW!! You have a ton of really pretty stuff - but I can't picture how it's laid out - or how you take care of them all - I know about the getting older part - I don't get up and down too easy anymore - that's why most of the stuff I plant has to be minimal care. I've lucked out with a few things that weren't expected to be perennial. We had a family reunion at our house last september. I bought a ton of red cyclamen to brighten up the gardenia bed. I couldn't believe it when they lived and flowered thru the winter - now I need to buy a few more to fill out the bed. I've always dreamed of having a tropical garden - grew up in upstate NY -now I'm putting the finishing touches on it. Last year I had 4 passionflower vines - gulf frittilary (sp?) caterpillar ate to the ground and a bunch or red pentas that the Spinkx (sp?) moth caterpillar ate. I need to figure out what to get to replace them - It was neat seeing them - but I don't want to go thru that every year. I have just two patches of grass - one a dog run - hidden from view. The other is at the end of the pool patio - centered between two large quarter circle beds - at the two corners of yard. Front yard mostly grass - haven't done much there - a circular bed under tree filled with dianthus. Currently I need to move some Black Magic elephant ears - they are too close to patio edge - they get big and droop over patio. I'm going to move them back and put some dwarf lorpetulum as a small mounding edge around bed for them to droop onto. It's raining right now - so I have a reprieve. I need to get a digital camera so I can share pics.

Esther

i plant in the fall. that way everything is all settled in by july/aug. the following year. i rarely water anything except for the new plants waiting to be planted that i keep in pots under my sorry catalpa shade tree. even then i fill kiddie swimming pools and set the pots in them. and i use a lot of mulch. water can be short in texas and i try not to use it wastefully.

i don't live under a homeowner's assoc. so i can start new beds years in advance by putting down cardboard and hay and leaves trying to get the worms to help me as well as kill the grass. the grass has got to go but i can't dig it all quick enough.

if you are going to grow passion vines you need a lot of them but the gulf frit cats ate mine up as well. i didn't have enough and i felt sorry for them as there were so many. i would scoop them up by the handful to move them to a new vine. and if you didn't dig the passion vines up they should return this year just fine.

Mamajack
We live in a homeowners association. I don't need to start any new beds- most of them were already there - just needed ammending - I added a half circle bed under my big bay master bedroom window -the shape was already formed by the patio- just had to get rid of grass and ammend. That is where I have the three miniature gardenia and cyclamen and an oleander to shield dog run & a/c poll stuff from view. - I didn't dig up the passion vines but I haven't seen them. Shouldn't they be at least up by now?Most of my back yard is pool & patio - with beds surrounding. The patio starts as courtyard by kitchen hallway -with the door to the master bedroom across the courtyard - I have a control panel for pool/spa just inside master door - so I can heat up the spa before I go out. I love that!

I have two big pots that look tuscan - they are fake so they are lighter, but still heavy - Last fall for the reunion I just threw in pre potted azeala bushes, with a tray inserted for it to rest on - the bottom of pot is narrower - similar to waist up of an hourglass figure - the top has a grapevine embossed pattern. It was a real battle getting them out - I was hoping that the water wouldn't go beneath the tray - but it did. I'm collecting empty plastic juice/soda bottles to fill up the space so there won't be as much water. I still will do the pot within a pot. It makes water control easier - I do this for all my houseplants as well - It helps with the fussy ones that don't like to get their feet wet. I don't know what I'm going to plant in them. I'd like to find something that would live thru winter - but I don't know if that exists - the azealas didn't. I didn't expect them to. I want to put some other pots around the pool also.
Kat has a beautiful container garden (lizard lounge) inside a sunroom. Check it out in container gardening.(Container renovations thread)
Any Ideas?
Esther

This message was edited May 5, 2008 6:33 PM

not with containers. i kill all of those. lol. my plants have to live on their own because as you said i have too many to baby any particular one.

yep the passion vines ought to be up i would think. but the temps have been so cool and maybe they are even cooler inside your fence.

Kitty lover, I agree. I voted for the Tropical! I too plant primarily for fragrance and butterflies.
Nothing like walking around the garden with the breeze wafting the fragrances around; watching the butterflies flitting from flower to flower, laying their eggs on the passiflower or Cassia's and watching the birds splashing in the birdbath. Also watching and listening to the parrots at the feeder with their Guard watching for their safety, foregoing his turn to feed this time!
The night fragrances of the Brunfelsias is probably a hallucinogenic, but in a wonderful sense! The different fragrances are better than gardenias,I think. I have a pond with a fountain. A toad visited for 3 nights some time ago. I thought all her eggs were eaten by a pesty heron who has demolished quite a few dozen of my goldfish tilll last week when I used a pool strainer to clean some debris from the pond! I found one fat tadpole, no legs yet, so I stopped cleaning up! Who knows how many of them are there. But even one is enough for me! But Mommy Frog is croaking somewhere else as I heard her tonight from a distance of a couple of houses! Wish she'd come back and lay more eggs!


This message was edited May 7, 2008 12:36 AM

Bedouin, I put a sign up outside pointing the way to Ft.Lauderdale for all the thousands of frogs we have, very happy to share. I get them sitting in my Crinum leaves - waiting to catch insects - or sheltering from the sun. I like them but we do have rather a lot.

Bedouin - I have serious zone envy here - how I would love to have parrots feeding - that is worth savoring!
Esther